Better Know a Letter - Q

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In this episode of Better Know a Letter, Will breaks down the Q - one of the two 10-point letters in the game. Newcomers to Scrabble often love the Q for its huge scoring potential, but veteran players fear the Q more than any other letter. Watch this video to find out why!

[@johnwilder4789]

“It looks like a crime scene” - that definitely got a laugh out of me. Awesome.

[@nitorishogiplayer3465]

Same here, as well as "fear the Q"

[@FuscaBat]

I still have the Scrabble CD-Rom from the year 2001. It is a grim reminder of the dark ages when QI was not a valid word.

[@wanderer15]

*shudders*

[@XANDOAndy]

Yet again I'm impressed by the visualizations you did! Those synergy charts for the E and Q are amazing.

[@thatliquidthing1903]

Well done. You've got two more power tiles to go - S and J! I'd like to see J in this series in particular, please! Also, you went STRAIGHT *BRUTAL* on Q! Cool stuff!

[@wanderer15]

I felt I had to go extra hard on it because, unlike some of the other tiles that beginners and veterans alike agree are subpar (U, V), that 10-point face value on the Q is so appealing to newcomers. But studies that have attempted to determine how many points each letter "should" be worth have indicated that the Q should be worth as many as 16 points for it to be a neutral-value tile!

[@amthy5675]

@@wanderer15 16 points, I will use that in my scrabble games. thanks

[@hongxiawang2049]

@@wanderer1516 points seems a little crazy, but it should definitely be more than z

[@user-ir7ib9qu9s]

Fun fact , apart (strength) , (splotchy) and (borschts) are also contain 7 consonants, but I do not know is (borschts) validate

[@brianbowman6639]

Q sent me. I still like the Q a little better than a few other tiles in the set. One upside is that you really don't have to spend much time thinking about what to do with it. (1 1/2 stars)

[@wanderer15]

Fair point. Time/brainpower is an underrated Scrabble currency. I would add this, though: the game footage you see in these videos is from the NASPA Tournament of Champions. There were a total of 31 games played in the event. Zero bingos were played with the Q, and the Q was exchanged almost as many times (5) as it was played as part of a 40+ point play (6). Yuck.

[@jamburga321]

@@wanderer15 I think V is a worse tile than Q, V is the worst scrabble tile probably

[@AlexDings]

I agree that the Q is the worst letter, but a look at other languages is interesting here: It could be even worse :-D I don't play in French, but if my wordlist for that language is up to date, they don't even have QI (maybe someone can correct or confirm me). And in German, which I do play, all we have for Q-less words are QIs, NIQABs, QINDARs, QIGONGs and QINDARKA. So as I'm studying CSW, all of these amazing Q words feel like godsends to me. I mean, WAQF?! Count your blessings :-D

[@mischajay]

What's the best place to play scrabble in German? Haven't found any good website yet... :(

[@AlexDings]

@@mischajay Sadly, we don't have a good platform because the person who created our word list is blocking its usage. I'm currently trying to convince him to allow it to be used on woogles.io, which is the best place to play in English. Right now there is only the Scrabble GO app (which uses the word list without permission) and a program called Scrabble 3D where after downloading it, you can log onto a server where a bunch of people (like myself) play from time to time.

[@eliebinetruy]

In french the Q is worth 8 points because there is even more words with "qu" in them but the lack of 2 letter words is definitely a problem

[@pialba]

QI was added in 2020 in French. We also have QAT(s), COQ(s), FAQ(s), QIN(g,s), CINQ as short Q-without-U words - as well as QUE and QUI to complete the list of threes with Q. Where the French Q shines is in long words with Us - in fact, over 20% of bingos with two Us contain a Q ! (Considering there are six Us in the French scrabble set, duplicate Us aren't that uncommon and I've already seen bingos with duplicate U's and a *blank Q* semi-regularly). Definitely an easier tile to use than the W (but it's two less points, so...)

[@philfoster8789]

Will: I know you made some excellent points about the Q - and I'll certainly bear them in mind - but, for me, the tile I really hate is the V: well... you can't even make any two-letter words with it!

[@vko.]

FOR REAL

[@Ktymom]

Vu

[@philfoster8789]

@@Ktymom Yes... I'm not saying "vu" isn't a word (a volume unit meter); but I am saying that, sadly, it is not yet a valid Scrabble word - and that's all that counts in the game, I'm afraid.

[@zidane8452]

​@@Ktymomvu is not a word

[@mitchellszczepanczyk2300]

Good video. One idea for a video: Define more precisely what you mean by "synergy". Is it combining power? Can it be quantified?

[@nicholas3354]

As a non Scrabble-player (I've played casually a few times), I didn't notice there are only four "U"s; no wonder the "Q" is so awful. A couple more "U"s, and the "Q" wouldn't be too bad for ten points.

[@zidane8452]

U should of worth way more points. It's an awful vowel

[@madzilla14]

SUPERSCRABBLE played with 8 letter racks!! Add 6 or more blanks to Letter pool, and we have a fabulous Scrabble game. We get to use MORE of learned vocab., MUCH MORE !!

[@Dexaan]

The best play I ever made in Scrabble was SEQUOIA. I still lost seeing as I was struggling with vowels all game.

[@legoferrari14]

The Q is essentially the Scrabble Equivalent of post-Melee Ganondorf; immense power but damn near unusable in professional play, even by people who know how to maximise their potential.

[@manaphylv100]

Is WAQF not allowed in TWL? It looks like a random word made from someone bashing the keyboard... which is pretty much how PWN came to be (a typo of OWN).

[@clu2573]

Scrabble wouldn’t be a board game without the word qi. The creator would’ve just burnt the tiles if a word like so didn’t exist.

[@letsmakeit110]

' (paraphrasing) The Q should be worth 16 points to be on par with the other tiles' I'm curious for a follow up expanding on this. What do the experts think are "fair" point values for each letter where, say, the first tile you pull from the bag doesn't affect your winning chances? Is the 'S' negative?

[@wanderer15]

Yes, depending on your method of 'balancing' the tiles to make them all equivalent value, the S could very well be negative. Given that we have the blank set to zero as our current "lower bound", it might make more sense to keep the S at one point and increase everything else to keep pace. Of course, reasonable people will disagree about the upside of balancing the tiles like this - it would reduce luck for all resources to be nearly equivalent in value, but mastering the differences in value between the letters might be part of the allure of the game for some.

[@trapstarlifeAustralia]

Haha fear the Q, made me laugh out loud dude. Also Will, could you please do J next, the J really frustrates me.😎

[@Bryan871110]

QUA and SUQ are pretty useful too

[@tjspaul1]

I play alone. I try to beat own my high score and use only one rack. I apply modified tournament for solo. ( Time limit is 50 minutes.(Excluding recording time. Only includes thinking and placing time.) Three consecutive zero scoring turn ends game immediately. All words should be valid. Unplayed tile penalty subtracts all tiles not played including tiles in the bag.) Any thoughts?

[@blacknaf]

Q is a hot potato - I agree that you need to get rid of it asap.

[@jellomochas]

We should better know O, because your opponent always an O. Two O's, in fact.

[@asdfasdf4924]

I think the Q is great. You can usually score well with it. I'd give it 2 stars at least

[@matthewoconnor8744]

Isn't synergy zero sum by definition? Meaning that the fact that the E is synergistic with a bunch of letters just means that there's one or two letters that are really poorly synergistic with.

[@wanderer15]

Yes, the answer to that question is that the E is significantly less synergic than usual with itself - Es appear roughly 30% less often than usual as a duplicate in the subset of bingos containing one E compared to the full set of all bingos as a singleton, and that percentage is roughly evenly distributed across all other letters.

[@baactiba3039]

I just got my 3rd ever bingo with QUIETED, now I feel slightly lucky

[@arianation8994]

Who else just sometimes is like PLEASE GET Q PLEASE GET Q just for your opponent that diddn’t want it to get it :l

[@MissPurplePotato]

In this video you show that when playing you can visually see your opponent. Is that an app? If so which one? That would be fun to see my opponent. Question 2 I have is that if I swap the Q out for another tile, are the chances pretty good that my opponent will end up with it? Thanks!

[@wanderer15]

That was a broadcast I was a part of where all the players were playing on Scrabble GO, but playing together on a Zoom call. Depending on when in the game you swap out the Q, the chances won't be that much better than 50-50 for your opponent to draw it. But if you were to swap it towards the end of a game and your opponent plays a lot of tiles, it could be very likely that they'll draw it.

[@lennydowntown9376]

I actually love the Q.

[@SnakeAndTurtleQigong]

Very helpful, thanks!!

[@lucienhiemsta4805]

Good video, I agree! I absolutely hate the q! In dutch the letter q is even worse than english. There are only a handful words I know with the q in dutch and on the contrary to english, the q (almost) never appears in a verb, but only occurs in the dutch word list as a borrow-word from english words (such as qat or quinoa). Btw the worst rack I ever got was 7e's. Had to exchange it immediately.

[@zidane8452]

Q is so awful. If it's a letter then idk why sh and ch couldn't be their own letter

[@user-tl2gx5wk3j]

We play Scrabble almost every day and we use IQ as a word and thats the bottom line because we said so!

[@UniquelyGerman]

I mean I did bingo in q of quailed!

[@Drogon7102]

Its funny because the highest scoring word I ever played was with a q. Inquired on a triple -triple

[@romajimamulo]

I've seen some wordgames have Q as "Q(u)", so they include an optional U. How much would that change improve the Q in Scrabble?

[@wanderer15]

It would become much much stronger! (It still would need to be a high point tile as it’s rarely in bingos)

[@romajimamulo]

@@wanderer15 would it make it no longer the worst tile in the game or would it be still too difficult to use?

[@TheBadtzmaroo]

Nice video. I don’t fear this letter. More like I understand this letter.

[@fambamnetwork4388]

At 5:51 the i in yogism would have been a good move

[@cathykeener6634]

Needed … 2 letter words study, like flash cards with their meanings to help memory. I guess I could do a PowerPoint….?

[@KC-mw3rp]

There's a website called quizlet that you can create flashcards with! I use it often to create 'decks' for my studying!

[@RobertNowland]

Seems Q becomes a worse letter the better opponents you're up against as they're more prepared for it. Likewise recieving it late in a game and enduring the endgame with it can be disastrous

[@wanderer15]

I made a video about this topic here (EE appears a few minutes in) kzbin.info/www/bejne/kHvNfomwoL13ock

[@kerrieford6110]

J How to exchange letter for añother

[@sdwxrld6024]

Q: Weakest bingo tile in scrabble. Strongest fluid tile in scrabble.

[@UniquelyGerman]

I did bingo at thatq

[@SG2048-meta]

I’d give the Q 2 stars. That’s simply just because QI and QAT exist, we’d be doomed without them

[@zidane8452]

I'd give it zero. It's bad

[@SG2048-meta]

@@zidane8452actually, after reconsidering my opinion I realized that I should give the Q -1 stars

[@chyanbongco]

What value is Q

[@NamsaRay]

Q is a wild card for most of the time. You may one time have no tiles to play with it and other times your opponent just gets some insane clutch using qi or qatcombination.

[@sdwxrld6024]

Weakest bingo tile in scrabble. Extremely strong fluid tile in scrabble.

[@zidane8452]

Fluid? It's not fluid at all

[@jameswilsoncomedy444]

Suq is handy

[@anglaismoyen]

Suqma

[@leucykek3134]

Aqua

[@mugenversstudios613]

There are tons of words in a Scrabble Dictionary (and that includes swear words!!!). My favorite word is the two-lettered "ig." An ig is defined in the Official Infiniversal Scrabble Dictionary (imaginary) as "a pig who lost the ability to pee; a swine that cannot urinate." Doesn't contain a Q, though.

[@Thaplayer1209]

Very cool. Too bad ig is not playable though

[@badlowkey]

K

[@brianbritton3693]

Impeach that Q !

[@axcertypo]

first

[@SAYFVCKFOR100DOLLARS]

fear the Q

[@jellomochas]

Q is the worst tile, suck it Josh

[@jameswilsoncomedy444]

V is the worst

[@Alex-vt1wh]

no

[@jameswilsoncomedy444]

@@Alex-vt1wh yes

[@anglaismoyen]

Fascinating debate, fellas.

[@zidane8452]

Yea no it's Q

[@jameswilsoncomedy444]

@@zidane8452 q is fine you can do a lot with q

[@sdwxrld6024]

Four u's

[@elemenopi9239]

scrabble is like politics, you really don't want the Q on your side